Friday, February 23, 2018

SB 490 was gateway to assisted suicide [legalization], and the Senate just slammed it shut for now

On a 12-10 vote, the New Hampshire Senate has killed a bill that would have paved the way for assisted suicide. I did not see that result coming. Thank-yous are in order, including one I didn’t think I’d ever be writing.

Voting “inexpedient to legislate,” sending the bill into the trash heap: Senators Bob Giuda, James Gray, Harold French, Ruth Ward, Gary Daniels, Kevin Avard, John Reagan, Donna Soucy, Regina Birdsell, Chuck Morse, William Gannon, and Dan Innis. If any one of them had voted differently, today’s outcome would have been different.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Today, the New Hampshire House of Representatives defeated HB 1325. The bill had sought to enact an Oregon-style death with dignity act in New Hampshire. The bipartisan vote was an overwhelming 219 to 66.

Your heir, who will financially benefit from your death, is allowed to act as a witness on the lethal dose request form. See 137-L:4 (allowing one of two witnesses to be an heir)

There is a complete lack of oversight once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy. Not even a witness is required. Even if you struggled, who would know?

3. HB 1325 encourages non-dying people to throw away their lives.HB 1325 applies to persons with a "terminal condition," which is broadly defined so as to include non-dying people with disabilities. See, for example, this commentary by Stephen Drake regarding the prior bill, HB 304:

Well, advocates for assisted suicide in New Hampshire can say – with a straight face – that the bill they’ve introduced is limited to people with “terminal conditions.”

The trick, of course, is that they’ve come up with a new and expansive definition of “terminal condition,” [as follows:]

XIII. “Terminal condition” means an incurable and irreversible condition, for the end stage of which there is no known treatment which will alter its course to death, and which, in the opinion of the attending physician and consulting physician competent in that disease category, will result in premature death.

Read that definition carefully, terminality is defined as having a condition that is irreversible and will result in a premature death. My partner [who uses a wheelchair] would fit that definition. Many people I work with also fit the definition.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

On March 16, 2011, the New Hampshire House of Representatives defeated an Oregon-style physician-assisted suicide bill. The bill, HB 513, was defeated on the House floor 234 to 99. The bill had previously been defeated in the House Judiciary Committee 15 to 1. The majority committee report gives these reasons for the defeat:

"[T]his bill would legalize state-sanctioned suicide for people with terminal illnesses and that this is an area where government does not belong.People with terminal illnesses who may consider suicide do not need encouragement from the government. The committee further believes that this bill is a recipe for elder abuse.The committee also recognizes that doctors’ diagnoses and predictions may be incorrect; numerous cases exist where people have lived far beyond their doctor’s predictions, some of them having been cured from their terminal disease.For these reasons, the committee strongly believes that this bill represents bad policy and practice and recommend inexpedient to legislate."

During this same hearing, former New Hampshire State Representative Nancy Elliott testified in person. Washington State attorney Margaret Dore testified in person and presented this analysis. There were other presentations and written submissions.

In 2010, the New Hampshire House of Representatives had defeated a similar bill, HB 304. The vote then was 242-113 on the house floor and 14 to 3 in the House Judiciary Committee. At that time, both the House and the House Judiciary Committee were controlled by the Democratic Party.